This is a piece of fiction and any resemblance to any characters in real life is purely coincidental and not intentional.

The doorbell rang, breaking the staccato silence that was my life. Who could it be, I wondered as I walked towards it. On opening the door, the colour drained from my face. It was Shyam. Even as I stood staring at him, my mind was speeding with a dozen thoughts, all fighting to make space. He was thinner, one said. He looks smarter, said another. And so on and so forth.

"Won't you ask me in, Pallavi?" he asked. I backed into the room allowing him to enter. He looked around with a casual eye, taking in the numerous paintings that hung at various points on the wall, some contemporary, some conventional. Then he looked at the sofa, the plush armchair and the desk and finally turned his gaze to look at me. "Not bad," he said. "Looks like you've bought lots of new furniture."

What was he doing making small talk while my mind was screaming to know only one thing? Why had he come back? He settled himself in the armchair without waiting for an invitation. Obviously he didn't think he needed one. I stood with my back against the desk, my arms folded across my chest. I hadn't spoken a word since he'd arrived.

"I have started my own business, you know," he was saying. No, I didn't know, I said. Somehow he didn't seem like an entrepreneur, he'd always been the type who was influenced by others' decisions. He'd been comfortable as an employee, taking and executing orders. Now that I'd given him a chance to explain, he launched into a detailed description of his venture, how much turnover his business had been making and how it had surpassed even his wildest estimates. Yes, he was rich now, he said with the air of a well-fed cat that has just finished off a large jar of cream. Did I imagine it or was there a gleam of expectation, a spark of hope in his eyes?

"And what have you been doing all these days?" he asked me as though he were an acquaintance meeting me after a month or so. Oh, just this and that. Nothing particular, I replied, with an air of indifference. Shyam looked hurt for a moment, the knowledge that I didn't open up to him stung him, then he recovered.

As I stood looking at him, the years fell away from him leaving a much younger, carefree Shyam in its place. How I'd loved him then. Though we had been by no means well to do, I managed to save some money from our budget and used to buy him little gifts. I cooked his favorite dishes day after day, darned his socks and washed the grime off his clothes. In short I'd tried my best to be a good wife to him.

And what had I got in turn? That day when he walked out of my life, I'd been shattered and shocked. Never had I imagined that my husband would do this to me. There'd been no explanation whatsoever, just a terse note saying, "I am leaving this house forever. Don't look for me - Shyam." In his trail he'd left behind a series of debts which I had no idea how I would settle. True, three months later, a check had arrived from Shyam which helped to a great extent, but what of the anguish, the trauma that I underwent? I lost confidence in myself.

Then slowly I began picking up the pieces one by one. I took up a job, worked as a freelance journalist, and gave tuitions at home to make ends meet. Time had dulled the pain and I became more social. These days I even went out on dates. That had been the most difficult part. For a long time after Shyam had deserted me, I'd become an ice maiden, refusing to trust any man for fear of getting hurt. But slowly the ice had melted and I'd emerged a better person. It had taken all of five years to readjust my life and make something of it. Now at last when I was beginning to get somewhere, Shyam had come like a hurricane tossing my carefully cultivated image across and turning my emotions upside down.

While my mind had been busy in rewind mode, Shyam had been talking intermittently unaware that I had not been paying attention. "Tell me something, Pallavi," he was saying now. "Didn't you ever wonder why I left like that?"

I gazed at him in sheer disbelief. How could he ask such a question when he must have very well known what I must have gone through? "To begin with, what had happened was…" Before he could proceed further, I put up my hand.

"Stop!" I said. "I have no wish whatsoever to hear your explanations. It's a little too late for that now." His face was a mixture of confusion and bewilderment. "But don't you want to know what had happened?" he asked. I shook my head firmly.

If he really wanted, he could have shared his tensions with me back then but he hadn't. Did he really imagine that by explaining things now he could take away the pain that I had gone through, the years of loneliness, the nights of despair? I looked him in the eye and asked, "Why did you come back now, Shyam?"

He sat silent for a while looking at the floor. Then slowly he looked up and said in a very low voice, "I came to say that I am sorry, Pallavi and that I want to renew our relationship."

"Relationship?" I laughed bitterly. "What are you talking about? The fire that was in our relationship died long ago, Shyam. Now only the ashes remain. Only ashes."